Earlier this month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers were working at an express consignment operations hub here in St. Louis and seized a shipment containing 422 Super Bowl championship rings. But an import specialist determined the rings were fakes. Had they been real, they would have been worth $300,000.
Steven Bansbach of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Public Affairs tells KMOX that the first red flag was that the box of rings was mislabeled.
"So our officers went ahead and inspected it after X-raying it, and found those 422 counterfeit rings," Bansbach said.
The recipient is in Jerseyville, IL — but Bansbach said there's still more work to do before determining if they should be cuffed.
"We turn over everything to the Homeland Security Investigations office — that's the investigating arm of DHS — and they do the investigation to see how much; did this person actually just make a mistake?" he said. "422, not likely that he made a mistake. But we definitely want to start gathering some information and see if there's additional information that we need to put together to maybe pursue an investigation into this individual."
Sometimes, he said, mistakes do happen — people order things without realizing that they're counterfeit. In that case, they'll often send a letter alerting the consumer of what's happened.
"If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. And that's what we need to be worried about, is if your gut tells you there's something not right, trust your gut, that's going to lead you in the right direction," Bansbach said. "When you're shopping online this season, you want to review the products, look at photos, check the seller information."
Hear more about counterfeit goods and the seized Super Bowl rings from Steven Bansbach:
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